On Wed, Sep 24, 2008 at 08:57:30AM -0600, Jordan Crouse wrote:
r870 with some minor whitespace cleanups.
I'm glad to see Multiboot supported by coreboot. I know some of you are skeptical, but I really think this is going to be a win-win for both GRUB and coreboot.
Surely, GRUB will get pushed off in some situations when its role would only be that of "middle man". I understood that from the beginning, and I don't see it as a problem. I wish people use GRUB for its own value, not simply as a redundant interface between two things that don't grok each other.
coreboot wins with this, because it expands its ecosystem. You don't lose anything, and you win a wider range of payloads/kernels/OSes that will become usable on coreboot "for free".
In GRUB, developers of payloads for coreboot might find a good testing ground. Since it is now possible to produce a payload image that will be loadable by either coreboot or GRUB with no modification, implementors seeking to support coreboot in their payloads can load them from a coreboot/GRUB stack without need to reflash every time (with the burden of using flash programmers, hotswap or risk to produce a brick).
The benefits for GRUB are similar. If Multiboot is used more, GRUB becomes more useful. But of course, that only depends on how much people will want to use Multiboot. My work simply allows it to be used, but doesn't set it as a "mandatory" option. I'm confident over time you'll see a benefit in using it by its merit.